As our world encounters difficult times, on personal and collective levels, here is a good story from Joseph Campbell to remember:
Become a “Feeling” Leader
Determining the collective emotional state of an organization is the critical starting point for bringing about real culture change and paradigm shifts. Simply glossing over the glaring realities of a corporate culture breakdown is unproductive and ensures ongoing difficulties.
Seeing fully, however, means understanding that inherent in any system—at any time—is both the capacity for success and failure. In other words, a team in breakdown is also a team that could be on the verge of a breakthrough. The same is true of the reverse, which is why high-performing teams must always be just as committed to new growth as teams in trouble.
We have all heard the term “thought leaders” used in corporate environments to describe those who drive organizations forward through the power of critical thinking. But what we have paid little attention to is the idea of “feeling leaders.”
“Feeling leaders” are those who drive organizations forward by using powerful feelings and connection to instill a sense of purpose and passion in others. I know many CEOs whose firm determination and belief drove their organizations to success because of the feelings of confidence they communicated to others. Great “feeling leaders” are sports coaches, military leaders, and entrepreneurs who use feelings of belief to drive achievement when skills and ideas are not enough.
These successful leaders do not “step over” any glaring realities or challenges, instead they authentically acknowledge them, and at the same time affirm their commitment to achieving success anyway. If the team is down in the final quarter, a great coach does not ignore the significant challenge—a great coach inspires his team into believing they have the skill to still win it. Miracles happen every day, but not without someone believing they could.
As organizations face growing challenges these days, it is more important than ever for leaders to understand and manage the emotional health of their organizations and develop creative ways to produce paradigm shifts. Developing greater skill in being an effective “feeling leader” is as vital today as being a great thought leader.
What is Your Company’s Story?
The great American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, often said that storytelling is how we learn, grow and develop as individuals and as a society. This is true for organizations as well. It is called “narrative knowledge.” The stories we tell about ourselves or our organizations define us. Stories of victory and success, or loss and failure, have greater impact within working environments than we can measure. People are propelled into action and belief by stories of overcoming obstacles. Organizations are just as easily deflated by stories of unfairness or weakness. Stories drive the culture.
But leaders drive the stories. Authentic, real, and powerful stories resonate and spread like lightening around organizations of any size. Leaders at every level of an organization have the opportunity to drive the culture by communicating stories that impact their people. Many great leaders instilled great passion for their causes by sharing important ideas through powerful storytelling.
We work with leaders of organizations on framing and assessing the stories that drive organizational transformation and culture shifts. This is essential and critical work for every organization.
Several years ago, I was taught by Steve Denning, a pioneer in organizational storytelling. He transformed the World Bank from a lending institution into a knowledge sharing organization. He convinced the leaders of the World Bank that project expertise and stories about their programs were just as important as the money they were lending. For example, sharing vital infrastructure development experience across continents was critically important to funding recipients who needed both the money and the knowledge. He became the bank’s first head of Knowledge Management. He is a remarkable presenter and expert on the power of storytelling in organizations.
He is the author of several books on leadership and organizational storytelling, including The Secret Language of Leadership, selected by the Financial Times as one of the best 16 business books of 2007. He is also the author of The Leader's Guide to Storytelling and the article Telling Tales, published by Harvard Business Review. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. Visit Steve Denning's Site.
What stories are driving your organization’s culture? What stories would support greater success and innovation?
Ignite Growth Through Clarity and Authenticity
In many companies, if you ask the simple question, “What is our mission?,” there will be as many responses as there are employees in the room. Most employees give answers that are right on track, but taken as a whole the answers point to unnecessary disconnection and confusion. Lack of clarity is a sure sign of missed opportunities. If employees cannot readily and clearly communicate the mission or vision of a company, then what are customers left to wonder?
This simple test can be used anywhere and it often provides great insights. I like to ask customer service reps on the telephone, or employees at the grocery store, at restaurants, or my doctor’s office…and, trust me, I get some strange looks. I generally see a strong connection between those who provide outstanding service and those who give clear answers about their company’s mission.
Aligning everyone on your team with a clear sense of purpose, vision and mission, is a priority that begins at the top. Defining “who we are” and “why we are here” is one of the most important leadership functions in any organization. It should part of an integrated communications strategy that is ongoing and exceedingly repetitive.
When I worked on projects at Ogilvy with Michael Sheehan, one of the most highly regarded media trainers, the rule in “landing” any message was always the same: repeat, repeat, repeat. Senior management might think the job is done after putting the message out a few times, but it never is. As a leader, your job is not done until you can visit every employee, supplier and customer and hear them clearly recite your company’s mission, vision, or what your brand stands for. Visit Michael Sheehan’s site.
This is one aspect I enjoyed on political campaigns. The job was never done until the voters could clearly understand the message. This meant repeating it over and over again, hitting the same audiences with consistency and message discipline.
It is imperative for organizations to develop a brand and identity that is clear, concise, and authentic. The problem many organizations have in communicating their brand is that the message just does not align with who they really are. The number one rule for authenticity: Be who you are. The second rule is: Be clear about it.
Building a great brand or company identity begins by sticking to the basics, resisting urges to be overly complex or to be too many things. Build a strong identity, make sure everyone knows it, and then grow it over time.
Understanding the Powerful Dynamics of Depth Psychology
Several years ago, I spent a year studying Transformational Leadership at Georgetown University with a great pioneer in the field of archetypal branding and marketing, Dr. Carol Pearson. Her work in applying archetypal patterns and myth to organizational dynamics, consumer behavior, and individual development is cutting-edge and provides one of the best frameworks for understanding the depths of leadership and the process of change.
After completing her program, I spent two years studying the roots of depth psychology and CG Jung at a leading institute in Santa Barbara. Pacifica Graduate Institute was home to legendary American mythologist, Joseph Campbell.
Also, best-selling author and archetypal psychologist, James Hillman (Soul’s Code), and author Robert Johnson (Inner Work) both teach at the school. Having spent this critical time investigating the rich and perplexing roots of depth psychology has given me a tremendous appreciation for the role of the unconscious and archetypal patterns, particularly as they apply to organizations and their leaders.
Below are three of Dr. Carol Pearson’s important works:
The Hero and Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes
“…integrating marketing with the concepts of archetypes, challenges the way in which we understand brand names and helps us understand their impact on our lives. Through Carol Pearson's work with archetypes and Margaret Mark's marketing expertise, the book offers clearly structured systems that businesses and marketing professionals can follow and replicate. Through this system, a company can connect more deeply with customers and derive the most from the expensive marketing campaigns that support today's brand names.” www.capt.org
Mapping the Organizational Psyche: A Jungian Theory of Organizational Dynamics and Change
“Today's organizations face many challenges; change is occurring more rapidly than ever before, nations of the world continue to become more economically linked, and corporations are looking for partners, oftentimes in not so likely places. Traditional business strategies work, but to be truly effective a leader needs to understand the dynamics that take place beneath the surface, the things that are not so easily seen.” www.capt.org
Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World
“In this original work, based on 20 years of research, Carol Pearson shows that the heroic quest is available to every person. We all have access to the common archetypes that enhance personal development. Part I introduces the heroic quest as a journey of consciousness and traces the way archetypes aid in constructing and balancing the psyche as they help a person form the Ego, connect with the Soul, develop a sense of true self, and finally express that self in the world.” www.capt.org
Become a Leader in Every Domain
Leaders are defined not just by the positions they hold, but by the places in their lives where they lead.
A defining transition for executives is crossing the threshold into broader leadership roles. Expanding your management skills and profile into your community, industry, trade, and to other parts of your company is essential to growing your career and finding greater fulfillment.
Some important questions to consider:
Are there areas or interests where you want to expand your leadership role? Have you set the stage for the next level? What steps do you need to take now to begin to reach the 5-year plan?
Do you have the resources you need to lead in tough times too? What steps can you take now to be ready to face the toughest decisions of your career?
Interestingly, the most difficult times also provide the most important chances for evolving leaders. Given the challenges confronting the global economy today, opportunities for developing stronger leadership skills abound.
Creating Bold New Opportunities
Having a great community relations program is essential to being a strong industry leader. Today, almost every kind of corporate outreach program should have some aspect of community relations built into its strategy. In the past, I worked on important public affairs programs for companies like AOL, Miller Brewing Company, and United Airlines, and all of them required critical elements of community outreach in order to be successful. This outreach also produced many surprising and long-lasting benefits.
Utilizing a broader community relations strategy provides important opportunities to earn deeper customer loyalty and reinforce brands. But even more so, being a strong community partner is the ideal opportunity to expand the company’s mission.
Beyond strategic philanthropy and employee volunteerism, there are important untapped opportunities to align your mission and outreach efforts to enhance relationships with customers, community leaders, shareholders, investors, and other stakeholders. Business, like life, is all about relationships.
For greater success, the company mission and the community relations mission should be joined and authentically enhance each other. Implementation should be both creative and unique to the company. If you are a technology company with a mission to make the world a more connected place, then what can you do today to deploy a community relations strategy that will actually fulfill the same mission in the here and now?
Most importantly, if your company’s business mission is bold (which it should be), then your community relations mission should be equally bold. A company should not be afraid to take a stand that matches its passion and purpose.